"Dorotea" is not a play; it is a story told in dialogue, a sort of composition which has lately been named "Dramatic Scenes." It is in prose, with a few poems interspersed. It is, as usual, very diffuse, and even incoherent and obscure in parts, and contains the story of the intrigues of a young man, whom it has been conjectured Lope intended for himself. Don Fernando, the hero of the piece, says of himself that his parents dying, and leaving him in poverty, he went to the Indies to try his fortune, but not prospering he returned to Madrid, where he was hospitably received by a rich relation. This lady had in her house a daughter and a niece; with the niece, named Marfisa, Fernando fell, in some sort, in love. Unfortunately she was obliged to marry a gentleman of some rank and merit, but aged. The lovers parted with tears; but the marriage was of short duration, the husband dying soon after. Meanwhile Fernando, on the very day of Marfisa's wedding, was introduced to Dorothea. He was then, he tells us, two-and-twenty, Dorothea fifteen, and beautiful beyond description. They seemed formed for each other, and though they now met for the first time, yet they felt as if they had known one another for years. Dorothea was already married, but her husband was far away in India. She was courted by a foreign prince, whom she coquetted with, giving him large hopes, and slight favours. This powerful rival Fernando at length gets rid of: but he suffers from another evil, the evil of poverty; and the thoughts engendered by want of money fill him with melancholy. Dorothea observes his sadness, and he confesses its cause; she promises at once to give up all feasts and amusements, and sends to his house her jewels and plate in two coffers. He disposes of these, and even so draws on his mistress's resources, that she is obliged to deny herself fitting dress, and to betake herself to unaccustomed labour for her maintenance.